> Hello cycling and all other folks,
>
> today I want to officially forward a request to build an audio unit
> object for Max5 with all the nitty gritty to go along with it.
>
> It really seems that companies have shifted priorities to audio
> unit, even though it does not make a lot of sense.

>>Hello cycling and all other folks,
>>
>>today I want to officially forward a request to build an audio unit
>>object for Max5 with all the nitty gritty to go along with it.
>>
>>It really seems that companies have shifted priorities to audio
>>unit, even though it does not make a lot of sense.
>
>
>There’s already a au~ object by Michael Norris:
>
>http://www.michaelnorris.info/software.html
>
>Best,
>ej

Last I checked it only loaded AU effects, and not AU instruments –
has that changed?

By and large we attempt to spend time on coding things for MaxMSP which are cross platform, these efforts will benefit a greater proportion of our users. There are lots of things we would like to create to improve Max 5, but as far as I know an au~ object is not one of them.

I can appreciate the cross platform argument on one level, but if one of the platforms in question experience a pretty significant shift from one plug-in format to another, I don’t quite see how Cycling ’74 can invoke cross platform compatibility as the main argument.

AU plug-ins are fast becoming the de facto standard on OS X, and I think Max/MSP ought to reflect this.

Hopefully the au~ plug-in will be fixed when the SDK is released, but it seems it hasn’t been worked on in a while – so perhaps nothing comes of it.

As much as I could get from my investigation, it seems that Apples purchase of Logic rivaled Steinberg’s vst domination and since Steinberg became Yamaha, third party developers feel that AU is the commercially stronger format.

I think one can not close ones eyes to major shifts in this field.
This is not my imagination, it is real.

>
>
>
> By and large we attempt to spend time on coding things for MaxMSP which are
> cross platform, these efforts will benefit a greater proportion of our
> users. There are lots of things we would like to create to improve Max 5,
> but as far as I know an au~ object is not one of them.
>
> -A
>

Quote: Andrew Pask wrote on Tue, 15 July 2008 00:41
—————————————————-
>… There are lots of things we would like to create to improve Max 5, but as far as I know an au~ object is not one of them.
—————————————————-

Really not?

1) Increasing Logic users community.
2) More and more requests to control Logic and MainStage for live performances.
3) The Logic Environment is not up to date, creative audio processing is not possible in MainStage – musicians with a creative approach start to combine Logic and MainStage with Numerology, Bidule, Max.
4) There is no MIDI plugin in Logic apart from a few special applications.
5) There is no way in Logic to trigger MIDI or effects based on audio playback or live sound.
6) MainStage has virtually no MIDI processing and it has no MIDI output.
7) There is no good arpeggiator or chord memorizer in Logic, Max as an AU plugin could do that.
8) …
9) …
…

Please rethink the priorities, maybe there is something less important than support for artists with a Mac.
Thank you.

Hans Mittendorf schrieb:
> As much as I could get from my investigation, it seems that Apples
> purchase of Logic rivaled Steinberg’s vst domination and since
> Steinberg became Yamaha, third party developers feel that AU is the
> commercially stronger format.
>
> I think one can not close ones eyes to major shifts in this field.
> This is not my imagination, it is real.

But on PC’s AU doesn’t even exist, though PC’s are real…
I’d wonder if the AU specs are as open as the VST specs, and if they
could translate to Windows. But I think the main reason for the
existance of a bunch of good AU plugs is the developement tools which
make creating AU’s way easier than creating VST’s. And those are not
available for Windows (for an obvious reason…)
Commercially a VST will cover more possible customers than AU. But if
the developing costs are significantly lower, you might just stick with
only the Apple musicians….

All Linux freaks claim the only valid plug-in format is LADSPA, which is
probably correct, but doesn’t mean anything practically…;-)

Peter Ostry schrieb:
> Really not?
>
> 1) Increasing Logic users community.
> 2) More and more requests to control Logic and MainStage for live performances.
> 3) The Logic Environment is not up to date, creative audio processing is not possible in MainStage –
> musicians with a creative approach start to combine Logic and MainStage with Numerology, Bidule, Max.
> 4) There is no MIDI plugin in Logic apart from a few special applications.
> 5) There is no way in Logic to trigger MIDI or effects based on audio playback or live sound.
> 6) MainStage has virtually no MIDI processing and it has no MIDI output.
> 7) There is no good arpeggiator or chord memorizer in Logic, Max as an AU plugin could do that.
> 8) …
> 9) …
> …

That list makes me think that logic is maybe not the best tool?… ;-)
But seriously, the main reason why people use logic, is the bunch of
high level plugs its coming with. But thopse don’t work in other
hosts… (bad karma for Apple…)
And if you look at your point 3, it’s likely you combine them already.
with Soundflower/Rewire or, maybe even simpler, with hardware cables…

I’d rather put pressure on Apple to release their plugs into the wild,
that would simplify things much more…

And you can run patches as plug-ins in Logic, though you still need to
use Max 4.6 to create them…

well, wrong is that it loads but crashes in max5. also in max4 its state
is very experimental – i wouldnt use it in anything critical. i know
that michael is working on an update but he is obviously very busy with
other things as well.

Gregory Taylor wrote:
> What’s wrong with the au~ object? Works just fine
> for me. And while you’re taking a look at it,
> Michael Norris’ spectral plug-ins load fine in
> his au~ object and sound wonderful.
>
>
> –
> knowledge is not enough/science is not enough/Love is dreaming this equation
>
>
>

Andrew Pask wrote:
> By and large we attempt to spend time on coding things for MaxMSP which are cross platform, these efforts will benefit a greater proportion of our users. There are lots of things we would like to create to improve Max 5, but as far as I know an au~ object is not one of them.
>
> -A
>
but there are several things in the official distribution which are
platform specific like jit.dx.grab of which osx users dont benefit…

its really a pity that the (unfortunately) main plugin standard of osx
is getting ignored.

if you would make a poll under osx users i am sure an au~ object would
be one of the most wanted objects (besides what now can be bought extra
as elastic~, and general higher mp3 friendlyness of buffer/sfplay) . and
although maxmspjit can be used for so many different tasks 90% of all
existing patchers are built around buffer/groove/vst.

furthermore an au~ would perfectly fit into the current
"hellokittyfication" of max5 – c´mon dont tell me this isnt a killer
pro-argument ;)

Peter,
Maybe you got things backwards. Apple doesn’t expose any of it’s plug-ins for use inside other hosts like Max, which is what the au~ object would be for.

So you must be talking about running Max patches inside Logic? The important thing is that Max 5 compatible Pluggo supports running as AU plug-ins inside Logic. I assume this is going to happen because the Max 4 version supported it. If not, well that would be a big step backwards and upset a lot of people, but I don’t think C74 is going to do that to us…? That’s not what Andrew was talking about when he said they won’t support an au~ object inside of Max.

Quote: Peter Ostry wrote on Tue, 15 July 2008 03:17
—————————————————-
> Really not?
>
> 1) Increasing Logic users community.
> 2) More and more requests to control Logic and MainStage for live performances.
> 3) The Logic Environment is not up to date, creative audio processing is not possible in MainStage – musicians with a creative approach start to combine Logic and MainStage with Numerology, Bidule, Max.
> 4) There is no MIDI plugin in Logic apart from a few special applications.
> 5) There is no way in Logic to trigger MIDI or effects based on audio playback or live sound.
> 6) MainStage has virtually no MIDI processing and it has no MIDI output.
> 7) There is no good arpeggiator or chord memorizer in Logic, Max as an AU plugin could do that.
> 8) …
> 9) …
> …
>
> Please rethink the priorities, maybe there is something less important than support for artists with a Mac.
> Thank you.
>
>
—————————————————-

Quote: Stefan Tiedje wrote on Tue, 15 July 2008 11:03
—————————————————-
> I’d rather put pressure on Apple to release their plugs into the wild,
> that would simplify things much more…
>

Uhm … Considering the things Steve Jobs et al are doing with the iPhone, I wouldn’t trust Apple to release much of anything resembling "openness" these days.

They are becoming increasingly monopolistic, which makes me think it’s easier for Cycling ’74 to adapt to Apple, rather than the other way around. The size of Apple alone … well, you know what I mean. ;)

Quote: oivindi wrote on Tue, 15 July 2008 11:11
—————————————————-
> Out of curiosity: What is the user base for Max/MSP like on the PC? Aren’t there a lot more Max/MSP users on the Mac? Or is that just my impression?
>
—————————————————-

Only Cycling ’74 can say for sure, but I think many of the old-timers are on the Mac, so it may be somewhat over-represented here.

wrote:
> Quote: Stefan Tiedje wrote on Tue, 15 July 2008 11:01
> —————————————————-
>
>> But on PC’s AU doesn’t even exist, though PC’s are real…
>>
>
> Out of curiosity: What is the user base for Max/MSP like on the PC? Aren’t there a lot more Max/MSP users on the Mac? Or is that just my impression?
>
>
>
>
oh yeah i´m curious about this as well!

Quote: Stefan Tiedje wrote on Wed, 16 July 2008 05:01
—————————————————-
> But I think the main reason for the
> existance of a bunch of good AU plugs is the developement
> tools which make creating AU’s way easier than creating VST’s.

Quote: Andrew Pask wrote on Tue, 15 July 2008 00:41
—————————————————-
> By and large we attempt to spend time on coding things for MaxMSP
> which are cross platform, these efforts will benefit a greater
> proportion of our users. There are lots of things we would like
> to create to improve Max 5, but as far as I know an au~ object
> is not one of them.
—————————————————-

As always, when there’s something complicated to be considered, I like
to see goals articulated.

What would be your goals in having an au~ object?

My main use for such a thing would be to use the cool plugins that are
bundled with Logic, but Apple precludes that by hiding them as part of
the Logic app, and they’re not available for other applications.

On Jul 15, 2008, at 3:17 AM, Peter Ostry wrote:

> 1) Increasing Logic users community.

OK.

> 2) More and more requests to control Logic and MainStage for live
> performances.

Control them through what means?

> 3) The Logic Environment is not up to date, creative audio
> processing is not possible in MainStage – musicians with a creative
> approach start to combine Logic and MainStage with Numerology,
> Bidule, Max.

And how would an au~ object change this?

Max 4 can make audio processing plugins, and eventually Max 5 will be
able to make them too.

> 4) There is no MIDI plugin in Logic apart from a few special
> applications.

Logic has no architecture for MIDI plugins. There’s nothing Cycling
’74 could do to change this, even if they wanted to.

> 5) There is no way in Logic to trigger MIDI or effects based on
> audio playback or live sound.

Once again, this is out of Cycling ’74′s control.

> 6) MainStage has virtually no MIDI processing and it has no MIDI
> output.

Talk to Apple about this.

> 7) There is no good arpeggiator or chord memorizer in Logic, Max as
> an AU plugin could do that.

The only way this would work is if the arpeggiator/chord memorizer
also contained a synth. At the risk of repeating myself, Logic has no
MIDI plugin architecture.

Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit that AU development is hard.
Probably at least as hard as VST development.

I think the biggest dealbreakers are Logic, auval and AULab.

the latter two are free.

_Mark

On Jul 15, 2008, at 4:13 PM, John Pitcairn wrote:

>
> Quote: Stefan Tiedje wrote on Wed, 16 July 2008 05:01
> —————————————————-
>> But I think the main reason for the
>> existance of a bunch of good AU plugs is the developement
>> tools which make creating AU’s way easier than creating VST’s.
>
> You’re kidding, right?
>

pure schrieb:
> and although maxmspjit can be used for so many different tasks 90% of
> all existing patchers are built around buffer/groove/vst.

Interesting claim, I guess its true for beginners. It needs some time to
expand your horizon. I bet its much less than 50% of all patches which
use vst~. Personally its around 2%, but that doesn’t mean anything…

For example Krispen Hartung, a brilliant looper, who also lurks around
here as well, started to get into Max for creating basically a VST host.
Max completely opened his mind into another world, and now he simplified
his complete set and I believe he doesn’t use any vst’s anymore…
(Kris, chime in if I’m wrong…;-)

> furthermore an au~ would perfectly fit into the current
> "hellokittyfication" of max5 – c´mon dont tell me this isnt a killer
> pro-argument ;)

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see an au~ officially supported, but I
do understand that it’s not a high priority for Cycling. The problem
would be solved if Apple would support vst’s, their reason to not
support it, is an annoyance for musicians, and solely aimed at market
shares of Apple versus Windows/Steinberg…
(And workarounds like VST wrappers are just a pain…)
That’s why I claimed, shout at Apple, not at Cycling…
(Same is true for ProTools and their Audiosuite plug-in format. They
even forced Cycling to prevent the creation of a wrapper for VST’s…)

For those who run logic without a Max connection, there is fxpansion offering a vst to au adapter. For my purposes it does not help, but for others it might be worth considering.
Also, I contacted Michael Norris to hear what he has to say about getting into the development of his au object.

I could think of a group of people really wanting it and in case cycling is not listening to it’s customers, we could sponsor Michael’s au to be developed further.

I always thought that the strength of cycling was their adaptability. You could show Apple that their crazy behavior is only what Julius Smith what have called ‘a page of code’ away to be overturned. But who can write this page of code?

>For example Krispen Hartung, a brilliant looper, who also lurks
>around here as well, started to get into Max for creating basically
>a VST host. Max completely opened his mind into another world, and
>now he simplified his complete set and I believe he doesn’t use any
>vst’s anymore…
>(Kris, chime in if I’m wrong…;-)

This was exactly how I got into Max – first building a simple VST
host, and then with mind opened, onto much more interesting things…

Cycling listening to its customers and Cycling always prioritizing Cycling’s time the way Cycling’s customers wish it were prioritized are two very different things. I’d expand on that, but I really need to return to my afternoon of massage and exotic cocktails.

Quote: Adam Murray wrote on Tue, 15 July 2008 19:55
—————————————————-
> Peter,
> Maybe you got things backwards. Apple doesn’t expose any of it’s plug-ins for use inside other hosts like Max, which is what the au~ object would be for.

Oh, then I misunderstood the request. Thank you for making it clear to me.

In this case I’d like to add that the plugins that come with Logic are really great but they are not AUs, at least not in the sense of AU plugins. They were always hardcoded in the program, cannot be removed and – as you say – cannot be used outside of Logic. On one side this is a shame, on the other hand it bears some advantages. MainStage for example can handle these extensions much better because they are one level deeper and under full control. However, if we talk about using AUs in Max then we talk about third party plugins.

> So you must be talking about running Max patches inside Logic?

Yes.

> The important thing is that Max 5 compatible Pluggo supports
> running as AU plug-ins inside Logic. I assume this is going to
> happen because the Max 4 version supported it.

I did not know this, sounds very good. Does it mean that we could make a "Pluggo-AU" that sends MIDI to a specific port? Before I came to Max I hoped that Sonicbirth will include this feature but they didn’t.

> If not, well that would be a big step backwards and upset a lot
> of people, but I don’t think C74 is going to do that to us…?

I would not be upset but disappointed that developers who are far away from the mainstream take the same "mainstreamesque" attitudes as many other companies. Max can be a perfect partner to support DAWs on stage, regardless of the platform and program – the more the better.

> That’s not what Andrew was talking about when he said they
> won’t support an au~ object inside of Max.

Quote: Peter Ostry wrote on Thu, 17 July 2008 14:24
—————————————————-
> I did not know this, sounds very good. Does it mean that we could make a "Pluggo-AU" that sends MIDI to a specific port?

I don’t think the Max midi objects work inside pluggo, not sure if this will change in a v5-compatible pluggo.

But I do have a half-finished pair of externals that implement their own CoreMIDI communication, bypassing the Max MIDI objects – I’ve been developing these primarily to allow port-hiding without crashing in LC Xmu. As a side-effect, I suspect these will also allow direct CoreMIDI communication from inside a pluggo. Another thing on the stuff-to-finish list, but it’s definitely on my radar.

Quote: Peter Ostry wrote on Wed, 16 July 2008 19:24
—————————————————-
> > The important thing is that Max 5 compatible Pluggo supports
> > running as AU plug-ins inside Logic. I assume this is going to
> > happen because the Max 4 version supported it.
>
> I did not know this, sounds very good. Does it mean that we could make a "Pluggo-AU" that sends MIDI to a specific port?

I don’t think so because Logic doesn’t support MIDI generating plug-ins, only MIDI receiving plug-ins (the "virtual instruments"). Once again it’s due to Apple’s lack of support for that capability.

This doesn’t matter to me – I prefer to have Max talk directly to Logic via virtual MIDI ports instead of building Pluggo plug-ins. This is a lot more flexible because you can modify your patch while it’s sending MIDI data over to Logic. Pluggo is good for MSP effects plug-ins that modify a virtual instrument’s audio signal after Logic has received the MIDI from Max.

>
> Quote: Peter Ostry wrote on Wed, 16 July 2008 19:24
> —————————————————-
>>> The important thing is that Max 5 compatible Pluggo supports
>>> running as AU plug-ins inside Logic. I assume this is going to
>>> happen because the Max 4 version supported it.
>>
>> I did not know this, sounds very good. Does it mean that we could
>> make a "Pluggo-AU" that sends MIDI to a specific port?
>
> I don’t think so because Logic doesn’t support MIDI generating plug-
> ins, only MIDI receiving plug-ins (the "virtual instruments"). Once
> again it’s due to Apple’s lack of support for that capability.
>
> This doesn’t matter to me – I prefer to have Max talk directly to
> Logic via virtual MIDI ports instead of building Pluggo plug-ins.
> This is a lot more flexible because you can modify your patch while
> it’s sending MIDI data over to Logic. Pluggo is good for MSP
> effects plug-ins that modify a virtual instrument’s audio signal
> after Logic has received the MIDI from Max.
>
> –
> Adam Murray
> compusition.com

> > Quote: Peter Ostry wrote on Wed, 16 July 2008 19:24
> > Does it mean that we could make a "Pluggo-AU" that sends MIDI to a specific port?
>
>Quote: Adam Murray wrote on Thu, 17 July 2008 06:39
> I don’t think so because Logic doesn’t support MIDI generating plug-ins, …

It does not allow to send MIDI to the program itself but there are AU plugins that send to a selectable MIDI port. I know two of them: WIDI audio-to-midi plugin and MidiO. The latter is just to send MIDI from a channelstrip. It does not validate in auval but it works.

>Quote: Adam Murray wrote on Thu, 17 July 2008 06:39> This doesn’t matter to me – I prefer to have Max talk directly to Logic …

Sorry, I mixed different applications. I agree, sending MIDI directly is better for controlling. But for other occasions I would like to have a plugin that sends MIDI based on filtered audio. Just like the sample triggers of apTrigga and Drumagog but sending MIDI instead. Preferably different messages for different filters or thresholds but just one would be fine either.

Quote: Chris Muir wrote on Wed, 16 July 2008 03:09
—————————————————-
> > On Jul 15, 2008, at 3:17 AM, Peter Ostry wrote:
> > 2) More and more requests to control Logic and MainStage
> > for live performances.
>
> Control them through what means?

Mostly simple things are asked like a stomp mode and song lists, but also more complex features like layered but individually controlled softsynths, mixed control of audio and MIDI and so on.

Intelligent "hardware" controllers can help but I think Max and a generic interface in the host are the better solution. At least for Logic.

> > 3) The Logic Environment is not up to date, creative audio
> > processing is not possible in MainStage …
>
> And how would an au~ object change this?

It would not. This was my basic failure – I’ve never heard about an au~ object and thought instantly it would allow the creation of AU plugins.

> > 4) There is no MIDI plugin in Logic apart from a few special
> > applications.
>
> Logic has no architecture for MIDI plugins. There’s
> nothing Cycling ’74 could do to change this, even if
> they wanted to.

I would send MIDI from different parts to the plugin in a channelstrip, let it process the data and send them to a port. I do it right now with the MidiO plugin but this tool cannot process anything and things go complicated. Too complicated.

> > 6) MainStage has virtually no MIDI processing and it has no MIDI
> > output.
>
> Talk to Apple about this.

I did and can proudly present the response: relaxing silence.

> > 7) There is no good arpeggiator or chord memorizer in Logic, Max as
> > an AU plugin could do that.
>
> The only way this would work is if the arpeggiator/chord memorizer
> also contained a synth. At the risk of repeating myself, Logic has no
> MIDI plugin architecture.

At the risk of repeating myself ;-) it would be great if the plugin just sends MIDI to a port. We know how to get it back. But well, building an arpeggiator or chord memorizer in Max and leave it there is probably the better solution and more flexible. I have accepted that Max will be my companion for a while.

> > 8) …
> > 9) …
>
> I agree with these points. :-)

Really? But these two are pretty hard to fix, they look so similar. They are 100% reproducible though :-)

Quote: Peter Ostry wrote on Wed, 16 July 2008 23:22
—————————————————-
> I agree, sending MIDI directly is better for controlling. But for other occasions I would like to have a plugin that sends MIDI based on filtered audio. Just like the sample triggers of apTrigga and Drumagog but sending MIDI instead. Preferably different messages for different filters or thresholds but just one would be fine either.
>

I see. That’s a cool idea. I tried sending notes from a [noteout] inside a Max 4 Pluggo plug-in but it doesn’t seem to work.

There are other options. I just made a pluggo with a [udpsend] and succesfully send messages back to Max from inside a Logic plug-in. Although it’s overly roundabout you could send messages back to Max this way and from there trigger MIDI to send back to Logic.

I believe it’s also possible to use ReWire to get the audio out of Logic into Max, where you can do your analysis/midi generation without plug-ins. I’ve never done this though, so I can’t elaborate.

So Peter, what you’d ideally want is for a pluggo plugin to be able to create its own virtual CoreMIDI output, and to be able to select a CoreMIDI port for its input. So then you chould stack ‘em up in a Logic channelstrip and route among them.

Chris Muir wrote:
>
> On Jul 16, 2008, at 1:27 AM, pure wrote:
>
>> all free and unfortunately my favourite ones…
>
>
> And aren’t almost all of them also available as VST?
yes – for PPC. no of them for intel

> So Peter, what you’d ideally want is for a pluggo plugin to be able to create its own virtual CoreMIDI output, and to be able to select a CoreMIDI port for its input. So then you chould stack ‘em up in a Logic channelstrip and route among them.

If I can make everything between input and output, audio and MIDI processing, then a big YES. This is exactly what I want.